John B. Anderson: The Great Independent Hope

If there were a Hall of Fame for Memorable Political Moments, you’d find Ronald Reagan’s 1964 “A Time for Choosing” speech in a prominent place. In the next wing, you’d find Barack Obama’s keynote speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

You’d have to wander into the Hall’s more obscure corners to find a nod to the night of January 5, 1980. But for one brief shining moment—OK, make it six months or so—it looked something wondrous had happened in American politics: the birth of a credible independent candidate for president.

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It was on that night, in the first primary debate among Republican presidential contenders, that a 57-year-old U.S. representative from Illinois with prematurely white hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a stern demeanor giving him the look of a no-nonsense college professor (or maybe a Puritan preacher from colonial days) threw a series of rhetorical hand grenades into the campaign.

John B. Anderson had come to the House of Representatives in 1959 as a hard-shell conservative. Three times he had proposed a constitutional amendment to place the country under “the authority and laws of Jesus Christ, Savior and Ruler of Nations.” But by 1980, he had gradually but increasingly come to reject much of the conservative canon: passionately arguing for an Open Housing Law to fight racial discrimination, dissenting from the Vietnam War, backing the Equal Rights Amendment.

On this night, as his fellow GOP contenders (other than Reagan, who had skipped the debate) were singing from the hymnal, Anderson offered up a series of heresies. What about the embargo President Jimmy Carter had imposed on grain sales to the Soviet Union after the Afghanistan invasion—a policy hugely unpopular in Iowa? It’s a cost, he said, “that admittedly has to be borne if we are going to send a clear, certain signal to the Russians.” What about the energy crisis? He called for a 50-cent a gallon tax on gasoline, to conserve energy and to reduce Social Security taxes.

And when asked, “How can any president curb inflation, cut taxes, increase defense spending and balance the budget all at the same time?” Anderson did not talk about “waste fraud and abuse,” or the magic of supply-side economics. Instead, he said, with withering sarcasm, “It’s very simple. You do it with mirrors.” He closed with a stirring extemporaneous jeremiad, warning that voters “see the politicians by and large playing the game the same old way” and concluding, “We’ve got to pull up our socks in this country. We’ve got to be willing to sacrifice something today in order to secure a better future, and a better tomorrow.”

The sustained hosannas from editorial pages and commentators in response to his blunt talk—including liberal voices like the New York Times and columnist Mary McGrory—made him an instant national figure. “Put me down as a believer,” wrote the normally skeptical columnist Richard Reeves. “John Anderson is the most impressive candidate in the presidential field. … Reporters are not used to politicians who look you directly in the eye and tell you exactly what they believe.”

But the praise from the left did him little good in the Republican primaries; with a big win in New Hampshire, Reagan was on a glide path to the nomination. Anderson nonetheless had stuck a chord in unlikely places for a Republican: on college campuses, in liberal Hollywood (producer Norman Lear and actor Paul Newman rallied to his side), even in the comic pages, where “Doonesbury” offered props. And polling provided more evidence: In early spring, the pollster Lou Harris argued that Anderson could indeed mount a credible independent run for the presidency. When Anderson indeed announced an independent run in late April, he was polling a high as 25 percent in a three-way matchup against Carter and Reagan.

It couldn’t last, and it didn’t. The money his campaign spent to fight restrictive ballot access rules left little for advertising. A slapdash staff stumbled into errors, like a trip to the Middle East that left him looking like just another American politician pandering to the Jewish vote. And in the fall, when Anderson’s poll numbers were high enough for him to be included in the first general election debate, Carter refused to attend; in their two-man face-off, Reagan easily outgunned Anderson. Later, Anderson fell below the threshold, and Carter and Reagan met in Cleveland for the one, decisive debate. On Election Day, Anderson won slightly less than 7 percent of the vote.

Maybe it would have been different if Anderson had had the kind of money Ross Perot did. (A dozen years later, the cash-rich Perot, despite signs that his seat back and tray table were not in upright and locked position, won 19 percent of the popular vote.) Maybe it would have been different if Anderson had had a more seasoned political operation. Maybe it would have been different if Aaron Sorkin could have scripted the campaign.

But Anderson’s run did have a lasting effect: It was the start of a phenomenon that reappeared in many subsequent campaigns. From Gary Hart to Bruce Babbitt to Paul Tsongas to Richard Lugar, candidates have trod a path where “hard truths” were offered to voters, where independence from political orthodoxy was a key. All of them won attention and plaudits; none of them won a nomination. Each of them earned the political equivalent of the Lady Byng Trophy, which the National Hockey League gives out each year to the “player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct.”

You can gaze upon that award by heading to the Hall of Fame of Memorable Political Moments. Just ask to see the John B. Anderson Trophy.